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Moving Account (domain) from Subdomain status to Parent Domain in List of Accounts

Amiga500

In WHM/List Accounts, I have a Domain which we will call Site1.com

If you go to cPanel/Domains, there's what I call a subdomain, which I will call Site2.com.

The customer has cancelled all services for Site1.com. "A" record, "MX" record, DNS records no longer has any information for Site1.com.  Site2.com remains active.

There is one email account under cpanel/Email Accounts for site2.com. There is also a web site under Site1.com which site2.com points to.  

I would like to take Site2.com and make it a parent domain (account) in the List of Accounts and delete Site1.com. Is there a way to do move Site2.com without deleting Site1.com (which would delete site2.com) and starting over?

If not, then what would be best practice to delete and create a new site when the site already exists as what I call a subdomain under another account?

If I create the account Site2.com and then add the one email account, will email start flowing into it automatically or what happens if site2.com resides in two places? Or, after I create site2.com as an account (parent domain) I would delete the other immediately and email flow will go to the new account?  I also have to take into consideration moving the web site data to the new account. Is there an easy way to do that without scripts?  :) So, what if I create site2.com, add the email account, but don't delete Site1.com which contains site2.com as a subdomain, would the web site still work until the data is moved over or would the site go down?  Sorry, trying to picture the different scenarios.   Thank you.

Comments

5 comments

Date Votes
  • Amiga500

    Also, is there a way to move the email data from the old account to the new one?

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  • cPanelPeter cPanel Staff

    Are you sure Site2.com is a subdomain? Subdomains usually are a host of the main/parent domain. IE: shop.site1.com for example.  Site2.com sounds like either an aliased (fka: parked) domain or an Addon domain.  

    If it's an Addon domain, there's an option within WHM to change an Addon domain to a main/parent domain.  

    There is no way to have Site2.com exist on the same server twice.  The system won't let you do that. 
    If it's truly a subdomain or an aliased domain, then you will need to back up the email data, remove the site2.com  domain and re-create it as a parent/main domain and restore the email  data.

     

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  • Amiga500

    Hi.  So, I guess I'm confused about what's a subdomain vs. add-on domain, etc....

    This is how we create our accounts/domains.....

    In the WHM, we have the List of Accounts.  I click "Create A New Account", then enter the Domain name, etc.... This is what I would call a parent domain.

    Then from the List of Accounts, I click cPanel for that Account/Domain, scroll down to the "Domains" section, and click "Domains", you have the option to "Create A New Domain". We do that and create what I call a subdomain.  But would this actually be called an add-on domain, or alias? If so, then what is a subdomain ?

    The other issue I have with subdomains or add-on domains, there's no easy way to search or view them. So, if one of our Help Desk guys needs to find that add-on domain or what I call a subdomain, they would have to know which Account/Parent Domain it is nestled under.  Kind of a pain. Since we manage all the domains not the customer, I'm considering not creating these add-on, subdomains, because of this.  I would rather create all domains as separate accounts in the WHM. 

    If the two domains point to the same web site and I create them as separate accounts/domains so they don’t share the same document root, I can still point the one to the other as a re-direct. They don’t need to share the same document root.  I can still create email domain forwards from one domain to the other, and also mail forwarding from one domain to the other.  So, I don’t see any advantage of creating add-on/alias domains under the parent domain/account other than if the customer was to manage their own domains on the server in cPanel, then they would have all their domains in one place and only have to use one password to access them. But since we manage all the domains not the customer then keeping all domains as separate accounts in the WHM seems best. Easier to manage and see all the domains we manage in the list of accounts.

    I hope this makes sense.  :)

    Thank you.

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  • Amiga500

    So, I see the feature "Transfers/Convert Addon Domain to Account".  I click on that and I see some of the addon domains which I would call subdomains.  But, I don't see the domain I am wanting to convert to it's own account.  So, that one must have been created as a subdomain not add on domain?  I don't really see the difference when I look at them. How are they created differently?  Aren't they all created by going to cPanel, Domains, Domains, "Create A New Domain"?  I guess once I figure out the difference then I can sort this all out. :)  Thank you for all your help!

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  • cPanelPeter cPanel Staff

    Hello, 

    Thank you for the additional details. First, let me provide a link to our Glossary section to help explain the difference between the domain types.
    https://docs.cpanel.net/knowledge-base/cpanel-product/cpanel-glossary/#subdomain 
    https://docs.cpanel.net/knowledge-base/cpanel-product/cpanel-glossary/#addon-domain 
    https://docs.cpanel.net/knowledge-base/cpanel-product/cpanel-glossary/#aliases 

    These are all going to be available under the parent account. An Add-on domain will also have a subdomain, but for DNS purposes only.

    Let's say for example that you have site1.com as your parent domain, and you want to create a blog under that, and you call that blog.site1.com  (that's a subdomain).  By default, it will not share the same document root (it can if you want it to). It will be a directory under the ~/public_html directory. 

    An Alias domain (FKA: parked domain) is a domain such as: site2.com that you want to point to the same location as site1.com. It's aliased (or parked) onto site1.com.   Visiting site2.com will take you to site1.com's website.   

    An Add-On domain is not aliased and can actually have a totally different website on it.  It usually also has a directory under the ~/public_html directory, which houses the website files. It can also have a directory under the user's home directory (not under public_html).  

    All of these can have email accounts.  IE: You can have myemail@site1.com or myemail@blog.site1.com or myemail@site2.com etc...

    Since you are controlling everything for your customers, then it makes sense to just make every domain a parent domain. 

    The full documentation for the Domains section (in case you need it) is here: 
    https://docs.cpanel.net/cpanel/domains/domains/ 

    If you do not see the domain listed under the Convert Addon to Account section,  then it is not an Addon domain.  It is either a subdomain or an alias (or  parked domain).

    All domains by the way can also be redirected to another location entirely.  By default aliased domains will share the same document root (but don't have to).  Subdomains will have their own directory and Addon domains will also have their own directory (but also include a subdomain for DNS purposes).  

    Hope that helps.

     

     

     

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